Lynne Sladky/Associated Press

The Definitive Moments of Tiger Woods' and Phil Mickelson's Careers

Lyle Fitzsimmons

"Let's get ready to tee offfffffff!"

Just when you thought high-profile pay-per-view circuses were solely the domain of the Floyd Mayweather Jr./Conor McGregor set, golfing stalwarts Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson are begging to differ.

The decades-long rivals will get together on Nov. 23—the Friday after Thanksgiving—for a one-on-one competition in which the winner over 18 holes at Shadow Creek in Las Vegas will pocket a cool $9 million.

"Capital One's The Match: Tiger vs. Phil" will go for $19.99 via a handful of providers, including B/R Live, and the competition will include side challenges for closest to the pin and longest drive, among others.

No tickets will be sold to attend the match, and both players will donate some of the largesse to charity, according to Golf Channel. Mickelson will send funds to both the Las Vegas Shriners and Children of the 58, a foundation he started to benefit children of victims of the mass shooting in Las Vegas last year.

Woods, meanwhile, will donate to his own foundation and other local entities.

Needless to say, the two men have dominated both the domestic and world golf scenes over the past 20-plus years, and their declaration of friendly PPV war on each other seems a fitting time to recap the 10 collective moments that have thus far defined their Hall of Fame careers.

Click through to see which ones made the cut.

Tiger: 1997 Masters

Had the back nine gone differently in 1997, who knows?

Indeed, had a 21-year-old Tiger Woods followed up a shaky 40 over the first half of his first round at The Masters with an equally shaky second half, the last two decades of golf may have gone differently.

OK, probably not.

But it the end it didn't matter anyway.

Showing the big-stage resolve that'd define his career, the battle-tested Stanford product bounced back with a six-under 30 over the final nine holes on that impactful Thursday—and set himself up for what became a ceiling-shattering 12-shot victory in his first major appearance as a professional.

And, as documented in the accompanying video, it was a performance that inspired a generation of Woods' current contemporaries.

Tiger was three shots clear of the field by the end of Friday's play, had stretched the lead to nine by the end of moving day Saturday and completed his Sunday victory lap with a routine four-footer on the 18th that clinched a Butler Cabin jacket ceremony alongside Nick Faldo.

It was "a turning point in the history of golf," said Jaime Diaz, editor-in-chief of Golf World.

We agree.

Phil: 1999 U.S. Open

He didn't win, but he made a Father's Day memory.

Phil Mickelson's second-place finish behind Payne Stewart at the 1999 U.S. Open was just the first of what's become 11 outright or deadlocked runner-up placements at majors—not to mention five victories—but if you ask golf fans about their first recollections of him, it ranks highly.

Stewart birdied the 17th hole and sank a clutch 15-footer for par to clinch a one-stroke triumph over Lefty, but the most vivid takeaway from 19 years ago at Pinehurst came soon after on the 18th green when the new champion consoled the beaten challenger, whose wife was pregnant with the couple's first child.

"Good luck with the baby," Stewart said, cradling Mickelson's face in his hands. "There is nothing like being a father."

Mickelson's first daughter, Amanda, was born the following evening.

Stewart, in agonizing poignancy, died four months later in a plane crash.

Tiger: 2000 U.S. Open

Nearly two decades later, it's still difficult to comprehend.

Oh, sure, Tiger Woods had won a pair of majors and was surely on his way to a noteworthy career by June 2000, but those suggesting they saw a double-digit U.S. Open win coming were likely lying.

Yet by the time Woods finished a gritty second-round 69—while much of the field was scuffling to the mid-70s or beyond in windy conditions—the foundation for a blowout was sufficiently laid.

"It's not a fair fight," said NBC analyst Roger Maltbie.

A steady even-par 71 in the third round stretched the first-place lead from six strokes to 10, and Woods' masterfully bogey-free final 18 holes at Pebble Beach brought the final chasm to 15 strokes and laid to rest any suggestion that the 21st century wouldn't continue as the 20th had ended.

It was his third major and began a run of individual dominance—hint, hint...stay tuned for Slide 5—that hadn't been seen before and has not been approached since.

Phil: 2004 Masters

It wasn't quite an Easter miracle, but it felt that way to Phil Mickelson.

The perennial second banana finally broke through to earn the title "major champion" in April 2004, when he birdied at the 18th at Augusta to capture the Masters by a stroke over Ernie Els.

It was the fourth time a player won the event with a 72nd-hole birdie and for Mickelson was the fulfillment of a lifelong dream after what seemed a life's worth of nightmarish near-misses.

And it was clutch, coming after he played the final 12 holes in five under after starting two over through six.

"To have it be such a difficult journey to win my first major makes it that much more sweeter," Mickelson said, via Augusta.com. 

"When you finally do achieve that goal, the harder the struggle, the greater the reward."

Tiger: 2001 Masters

Turns out the 2000 U.S. Open was only an appetizer.

Because by the time that victory was 10 months in the rear-view mirror, Tiger Woods was on to bigger, better and much more historic things.

Wins at the British Open and the PGA Championship capped off a three-major year in 2000, and the golfer formerly known as Eldrick became a reigning champ in all four majors when he beat David Duval by two shots and Phil Mickelson by three at the 2001 Masters.

Some purists scoff at the suggestion it's a proper "Grand Slam" because the wins didn't occur in the same calendar year, but CBS announcer Jim Nantz framed it perfectly as Woods sank a clinching birdie on Sunday's 18th hole.

"As grand as it gets," he said. "Tiger has his Slam."

His broadcast partner, Ken Venturi, echoed his reverential sentiment on the live telecast.

"I think it's the greatest feat I've ever known in all of sports," he said.

Phil: 2005 PGA Championship

Maybe, just maybe, there were other players aside from Tiger Woods.

And it turned out Phil Mickelson was one of them.

A single major winner heading into 2005, Lefty joined the rarefied air of dual winners after sleeping on the lead (or a share of it) for four straight nights before clinching the Wanamaker Trophy on a weather-prompted Monday finishing stretch at Baltusrol.

Mickelson was part of a six-way tie for the top spot after 18 holes and had a three-shot edge at the tournament's halfway point. He gave two shots back to par in the third round and fell back into a tie with Davis Love III, and then he was up by one when lightning in the area forced a suspension of play Sunday evening.

A flop shot out of deep grass from 50 feet away landed two feet from the cup and enabled a clinching birdie on the 72nd hole on Monday, while his nearest pursuers—Thomas Bjorn and Steve Elkington—settled for pars and wound up a single shot back.

And suddenly, the mettle of a champion was forged.

"Before I even won at Augusta, I had never really doubted that I would eventually do it," Mickelson said at the post-tournament press conference, via the Spokesman-Review. "And having not won a major or come close this year, I didn't doubt the fact that it would happen again. I just didn't know when. I'm very fortunate and very pleased and excited that it was this week."

Tiger: 2006 British Open

Here's a litmus test.

If you watched Tiger break down sobbing into the arms of his caddie after clinching the 2006 British Open—still just a few months after losing his father—and didn't feel for the guy, you may not be human.

Nevertheless, though his emotional outpouring may be the most memorable clip from the four days at Royal Liverpool, his play over 72 holes there was pretty noteworthy in its own right.

The championship, his third British and 11th major overall, was earned largely without the use of his top driving weaponry after he and the aforementioned caddie, Steve Williams, realized it'd be hard to control the ball on a sun-baked, dried-out course. He essentially ditched his 5-wood in favor of a 2-iron and hit into nary a fairway bunker across four days.

And when it came to his trademark, red-shirted close on Sunday, Woods delivered yet again.

Paired with Sergio Garcia for the final round, Woods maintained his edge on all comers, and when a hard-to-dissuade Chris DiMarco crept within striking distance, he reeled off consecutive birdies on Nos. 14, 15 and 16 and eventually won by two shots—improving to 11-0 in majors when entering the final round with at least a share of the lead.

Phil: 2010 Masters

Lest anyone think Tiger Woods is the lone superstar spurred on by emotion, think again.

Phil Mickelson arrived at Augusta in 2010 amid a swirl of familial adversity, having not won thus far in the season and suffering as both his wife, Amy, and his mother, Mary, had breast cancer.

And if that weren't enough, his 10-year-old daughter, Amanda, suffered a hairline fracture in her arm.

But once again, the Masters made it all right.

Mickelson picked up his third green jacket with what ranks among the guttiest performances of his career, including a final-round 67 that gave him a three-shot edge over runner-up Lee Westwood.

Predictably, tears flowed freely after he sank his final birdie at the 72nd hole.

"To come out on top in this tournament feels very emotional," Mickelson said, via the Telegraph. "It’s one of the best things we’ve been through. It’s been tough, and to be on the other end and feel this kind of jubilation is incredible."

Tiger: 2008 U.S. Open

Perhaps he saved the best for last.

Or at least the best...until the next one, if it comes.

Regardless, the 14th and final major of Tiger Woods' career thus far—the 2008 U.S. Openwas memorable for so many reasons that it's hard to catalog them all.

It moved him within four titles of Jack Nicklaus' record 18, at the preposterous age of 32.

It was made possible thanks to a remarkably clutch 12-foot birdie putt on the 18th hole at Torrey Pineswhere he forced a successful next-day playoff with Rocco Mediate and triggered as deafening a roar as has ever been produced at a golf course.

As we all found later, too, he did it with a broken left leg, which caused him to elevate its meaning.

"I think this one is the best," Woods said, via Golf.com, "just because of all the things I had to deal with."

And what's occurred since has made it even more significant. The injured leg cost Woods the rest of the 2008 season and the beginning of 2009, a layoff that perhaps prompted an un-Tiger-like 0-of-4 in that year's majors—including a missed cut at the British Open—and preceded the sex scandal that forever altered the aura of the greatest phenomenon the sport has ever known.

Phil: 2013 British Open

If the man himself calls it "the round of my life," who is anyone to argue?

Phil Mickelson, at age 43 and three years past his most recent major, woke up two decades of echoes to shoot a final-round 66 and capture the fifth of his career, the 2013 British Open.

The triumph came courtesy of four birdies in the final six holes, which left him three shots ahead of the field and added another element of street cred to a resume long lauded but often nitpicked, too.

Three Masters, one PGA, and, at last, a Claret Jug.

"I never knew if I would be able to win this tournament," Mickelson said, via the Washington Post. "I always hoped and believed, but I never knew it."

   

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